I think you're conflating 2 types of 'affordable housing.'
People say 'affordable housing' when they mean 'government legally forcing landlords to underprice their units' versus what the term should actually mean, 'a reasonable price range of rents'.
> there's certainly lots of red tape in NYC construction, but I see zero evidence that there is more red tape with non-luxury construction.
There isn't necessarily more but there should be less to incentivize builders. No point in going through all the bureaucracy if your margins are going to be super low.
> Simply presenting alternate causes doesn't mean AirBnB isn't a cause
It's a factor, for sure. I'm not defending Airbnb as a nonentity, my point is that it's easy to blame Airbnb because they're a new player whereas academics and state politicians seem less enthused about taking a cold, hard look at housing laws, while well-intentioned at protecting low-income renters, probably play a far larger role in increasing housing costs.
Huh? No, "affordable housing" means "rents people can pay" (an extreme example being a $250/month apartment). This isn't complicated.
> There isn't necessarily more but there should be less to incentivize builders. No point in going through all the bureaucracy if your margins are going to be super low.
Or, you could take steps that actually address the problem with the lack of affordable housing. Given that you just admitted red tape isn't necessarily more for affordable housing, removing red tape doesn't address the problem with the lack of affordable housing.
Red tape is a problem, but it's hardly the most pressing problem. Builders are making plenty of money in NYC. So when we're discussing real pressing problems like the lack of affordable housing I would appreciate it if you stayed on topic and didn't bring up the irrelevant problem of red tape. I'm not worried about builders having to fill out more paperwork when people are literally homeless in the snow right now.
> I'm not defending Airbnb as a nonentity
Your previous post was definitely defending AirBnB, even if it was just so you could bring up your pet issue of giving already-rich people incentives.
> academics and state politicians seem less enthused about taking a cold, hard look at housing laws, while well-intentioned at protecting low-income renters, probably play a far larger role in increasing housing costs.
Plenty of people are looking at housing laws. It's just that if you look at housing laws without the myopic lens of "incentives are the only way we can do anything", it's pretty obvious that laws which prevent owners from raising rents on affordable housing don't cause the shortage of affordable housing.
I'm just not sure how one can be so confused that they think allowing raising rents is the solution to rents being too high.
I realize I'm being hostile here, but your viewpoint is hostile to the poor and homeless of NYC.
I recognize that you feel passionate about this issue, but hostility is counterproductive in this kind of discussion. https://www.sonyaellenmann.com/2016/05/hostility-online-disc...
A data point amplifying this assertion is the situation in St. Louis, where tax incentives are handed out like candy to almost exclusively luxury developments. The city has seen several credit downgrades since 2015, with weak revenue raising ability cited in the most recent instance. The higher interest rates the city now pays on its financing are part of the reason why growth in tax revenue (including several sales tax hikes) has been fully nullified by cost increases, with the result being a net loss. Affordable housing development is sparse, since it's obvious to builders where they get the most favorable discounts.
> Luxury buildings are more profitable because rooms are more spacious (literally requires less construction), you need to make fewer sales to make the same revenue (in a 10 story building you sell 40 condos instead of 80) and buyers are more financially stable (each sale is easier). Removing red tape has nothing to do with that.
You're misunderstanding the GP's point. They're saying that heightened building costs make it irrational to choose to build lower-margin projects like non-luxury housing, because you don't have the margin to absorb those costs.
It's always going to be irrational to choose lower-margin projects. Let's say there's a 30% margin on luxury housing and a -10% margin on low-income housing, and you cut red tape, increasing margins by 20%. It doesn't suddenly become rational to build low-income housing. Margins are now 50% on luxury housing and 10% on low-income housing. All this has achieved is that builders make more money when they build luxury housing.
The problem is that space in NYC is limited, and income inequality is such that the wealthy can and do pay orders of magnitude more for housing than the poor can. This means that, instead of dividing up the space in NYC between the wealthy and the poor, it's more profitable to divide up the space in NYC between the wealthy and not serve the poor at all. This incentive structure will always exist as long as the demand for luxury housing is greater than the total amount of housing available.
There's no reason to believe we've hit the ceiling on what the demand for luxury housing. So even if we were to selectively cut red tape only on low-income housing, the wealthy could simply pay more for luxury housing to ensure that it remains most profitable to give them what they want. And meanwhile you're giving these incentives to the wealthy construction and real estate companies, increasing the income inequality that caused the problem in the first place.
I've said before that HN would rather incentivize nails than use a hammer, and this is another case of this. If we want affordable housing, we need to require companies to build affordable housing as a condition of being able to build anything in NYC. Giving more money to already-wealthy people isn't going to solve this problem.
So you're saying that affordable housing is preventing housing from being affordable? LOL.
> The endless red tape in new construction makes non-luxury bulidings unprofitable. Want cheaper rents? Fast-track approval for new apt buildings.
Luxury buildings are more profitable because rooms are more spacious (literally requires less construction), you need to make fewer sales to make the same revenue (in a 10 story building you sell 40 condos instead of 80) and buyers are more financially stable (each sale is easier). Removing red tape has nothing to do with that.
There's certainly lots of red tape in NYC construction, but I see zero evidence that there is more red tape with non-luxury construction. This is just a ridiculous HN meme at this point: every problem is caused by regulation and the only tool we're allowed to use to solve problems is incentives. I, for one, am deeply skeptical that making things cheaper for rich people is a good place to look for solutions to the problems of the poor.
More to the point: none of what you've said means that AirBnB isn't to blame for the lack of affordable housing in NYC. NYC housing is a complex market, and a lack of affordable housing has more than one cause. The article presents its evidence why they think AirBnB caused the problem. Simply presenting alternate causes doesn't mean AirBnB isn't a cause, because I think we can agree there is more than one reason that housing prices are high in NYC.